Otti: S’East Governors Won’t Let Politics Undermine Region’s Collective Devt

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

The five governors of the Southeast geopolitical zone have subsumed their different political leanings to work for the collective economic interest of the zone, Governor Alex Otti of Abia State, has said.

He stated this at the weekend, when he received a delegation of the Joint Body of South East Council of Traditional Rulers and Representatives of Igbo Archbishops and Bishops that paid him courtesy visit.

Otti told the delegation led by the Obi of Onitsha, His Royal Highness, Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe, that the South East governors were already working together to tackle the developmental challenges facing the zone.

The five states in the zone are controlled by four different political parties with the All Progressives Congress (APC) in charge of Imo and Ebonyi States. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) holds sway in Enugu State, while Labour Party controls Abia and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)  governs Anambra.
But Otti said the governors understood that it was important for them to set aside their political affiliations, prioritise governance and address pressing issues affecting the region, especially insecurity.

“Anyhow you look at it, we must deal with security as a region if not as a country. What feeds insecurity, to a large extent, is unemployment and poverty. It also feeds banditry and insurrection and we need to do everything possible to ensure that our people have something to do,” he said.
The Abia governor noted that no meaningful development could take place without adequate security, adding that the
regional security challenges required a unified approach by the brother governors to find sustainable solution.

To this end, Otti pointed out that the five South East governors do hold their meetings on regular basis
to address the issues affecting the region, including youth restiveness and regional economic growth.
He said he and his colleagues had initiated plans on  how to meaningfully engage the young people through the creation of employment opportunities and other empowerment programmes.

The Abia Chief Executive harped on the need to create a conducive environment to attract investments and businesses into the region so that employment opportunities would spring up for the young persons.

“We know that investors are rational. If you don’t make your environment conducive to attract investments, they will not come. I know at the minimum 20 to 25 businesses in Abia, before now, that just relocated at some point and closed shop,” he said.

Otti, who came into government from the private sector faulted the popular claims that government has no business in business, insisting that, “there must be investments that the states would have to make without looking at the profit.”